


Take Notes

by rudbeckia



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Hand Feeding, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 06:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17975831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudbeckia/pseuds/rudbeckia
Summary: Armitage Hux, third year physics student, is a workaholic whoneverskips classes. So when he’s absent from their friendship group’s usual post-class coffee meet up, first year English Lit student Ben Solo is concerned. When he finds out that Armie is sick, he decides to help out by going to Armie’s lectures and taking notes for him.He’s an expert in English ffs. How hard can it be?(started life as a twitter fic - this version is expanded a bit)





	Take Notes

After class, Ben sits heavily in his usual place in the campus coffee shop, opposite Phasma and two seats away from Mitaka, who shifts a couple of inches further along the table anyway. He glances around at his new friendship group, disappointment stinging at a notable absence.  
“Where’s Armie today?” he asks, looking over at Phasma and interrupting her quiet conversation with Unamo.  
“Sick.” She shrugs. “He said he felt a bit off last night and went to his room at nine. Maybe he’s taking the day off classes.”  
“Armie never misses class,” adds Mitaka. “He’d have to be at death’s door.”  
Ben nods. “He’d hate the idea of falling behind and spending the rest of the semester playing catch up. He works all the time.”  
“He does,” says Mitaka with a small sigh. “Every time I ask him if he wants to come out for a drink he has an essay to write or an assignment due or something.”

Nobody speaks for three seconds and Phasma avoids eye contact with everyone. Ben smirks into his coffee and eyes his brownie, a reward well earned for getting a _”Well done, young Solo!”_ from Professor Snoke. It almost makes up for the disappointment of not exchanging snarky comments with Armie about whether Physics or Literature was of more benefit to society while Mitaka leapt to Armie’s defence and Phasma stoked their fire with well timed comments to keep the argument going. Ben deflates a little at the thought that if Armie is sick enough to miss classes, he might be absent for the rest of the week. As an idea forms, he smiles.  
“What’s his schedule tomorrow?” Ben says, looking at Mitaka. Mitaka flushes pink and Thanisson beside him grins.  
“How should I know? He’s a third year and I’m a first year. We don’t share classes.”  
“Of course you know,” Phasma says, brusque voice carrying over the clatter of cups and plates. “You basically stalked him for weeks after he tutored you through introductory thermodynamics.”  
“I did not!” Mitaka glares over at Phasma until she laughs. He can’t help but smile and shake his head. “Oh, fine. Whatever. He has _Fluid Dynamics_ at nine in the Krennic lecture room, then same place at ten for _Low Temperature Physics_ and _Quantum Phenomena_ at eleven, then an hour break so that he can get to the Maths building for _Mathematics dumbed down so that even Physicists and Engineers can do it_  in the Palpatine Room at one. After that he has lunch then a lab class from three until six.”  
Ben’s jaw drops. “But that means he has more hours of classes in one day than I have all week!” he says. Phasma laughs.  
“Yes,” says Mitaka. “Armie says that Lit students get to lie in bed all day reading novels then go to a tea party with their tutors to talk about them.”  
Ben scowls but says nothing, thinking of Snoke’s gold-rimmed teacups and saucers and the lively discussion they just had about Thomas Mann before Snoke set the next assignment. Ben finishes his brownie and gets up to go, waving goodbye as he slings his backpack over one shoulder. On his way home, he stops off at the campus bookstore and buys a notebook, then he texts Armie.  
**don’t worry abt missing class tmrw got u covered**

There’s no reply by next morning when Ben rises at eight, confused about the blaring alarm from his phone. He curses and gets up, a dog-eared novel sliding from the bedcovers and gently thumping onto the carpet. He stumbles to the shower and emerges slightly more awake to drink enough coffee to see him through Armie’s lecture schedule. He packs his new notebook and four-colour pen into his backpack and sets off into the morning, squinting at the low sun. He enters the Krennic Lecture Room in time to get a seat near the back and waits, pen and notebook ready, for the lecture to begin. With horror, he realises that he’s almost the only person writing notes by hand. In front of him he sees screen after screen of laptops and iPads. He wonders for an instant if they will sense that he’s not one of them and throw him out.

But nobody pays him any attention. The murmur of conversation hushes as soon as the professor arrives, and when he starts to speak the only sounds are the clicking of keyboards and the squeak of the professor’s whiteboard pen. It’s impenetrable to Ben. He can’t grasp any sense of what the lecture is about and although individual words have meaning, they make no sense in the way that they are used. Halfway through he’s on the point of giving up and sneaking out when he has inspiration. The student in front of him shifts her head and he realises he can read her screen. For the next thirty minutes, he copies as much as he can.

After the professor leaves, Ben massages his hand. He’s covered eight pages in handwriting that starts off well enough but gets steadily worse until it is almost a scrawl. After the second lecture, his hand is cramping and he’s past the staples that mark the middle pages of the notebook. The third hour almost breaks him. He can barely stay awake, can’t focus on anything the lecturer is droning on about and only the image of Armie’s grateful face and the thought of his smile keeps Ben from throwing his pen and notebook at the professor, yelling, _“Find the wavelength of this you boring bastard!”_ and walking out.

Armie has an hour’s break next, thank fuck. Ben walks across campus, stopping at the coffee shop halfway. He buys the largest, strongest caffeinated drink he can get (a double espresso topped up with drip filter that glories in the name ‘Hammerhead’) and flicks through his notebook. There are only two more pages unfilled so he mooches two sheets of paper from the students at the next table. He sighs as he sips his drink and nibbles at his pastry, dismay building at the atrocious state of his handwriting. The notes may as well be in Shyriiwook. The thought makes Ben smile: at least if the lecture notes are useless they can talk about Star Wars since Armie let slip (under the influence of too much beer) that he’d learned Aurebesh script so that he could write his diary in a code that his father couldn’t read. When he’s ready to go, Ben feels more awake and he hopes the maths lecture is more interesting. At least he’s familiar with numbers.

The Maths lecture is an even bigger shock than the Physics. He watches the professor in disbelief. Is this even in English? After a couple of minutes, Ben starts scribbling down symbols and letters as the professor writes them on the blackboard. There’s an actual blackboard with chalk that scrapes and scratches and makes him shudder. He’s careful about the triangles made of dots that are sometimes upside down and he corrects the professor’s spelling when she accidentally (he assumes) writes ‘iff’ instead of ‘if’ and ‘thenn’ instead of ‘then’. He tries to copy the student beside him but it’s a struggle. Someone glances at his notes, scoffs and sneers, and Ben wants to punch him. The lecturer looks at her watch, stops mid-sentence and sets an assignment then walks out leaving the class to dismiss itself.

Ben has two hours before his own tutorial with professor Snoke. He heads home, makes a sandwich, and settles down for an hour of transcribing his notes into a form Armie will be able to make sense of. He catches sight of the calligraphy pen on its stand and, with a warm smile, he reaches for a sheet of the nice paper. He’s engrossed within minutes. Ben fills page after beautiful page with careful calligraphic script and only remembers that food exists in this universe when he pauses for a break and his stomach rumbles. He eats his sandwich quickly, checks the time and curses. He will have to suffer the indignity of being late for his tutorial unless he runs all the way there. He sends Professor Snoke an excuse and an apology by email instead so that he can spend the rest of the afternoon rewriting Armie’s lecture notes. When he’s finally done, his hand is in agony and he massages the thick muscle pad under his thumb then extends and flexes his wrist and fingers to stretch out tight muscles in his forearm. He wonders if he should put the completed notes into a scroll tied with ribbon, but dismisses the idea as Too Much.

He sets off for Armie’s dorm. On the way, he stops at Armie’s usual Chinese takeaway and buys a carton of chicken and sweetcorn soup and a foil tray of special fried rice because that’s what he has seen Armie order before, then texts to say he’s coming over. When he arrives, he buzzes to be let into the building then trots upstairs to knock on Armie’s door. It is open, so he goes in. The room is dimly lit by what little light gets past the blinds and it smells stale. Ben laughs and opens the window. Armie, or at least the lump that resides completely under the duvet, whimpers about the light and complains that there’s a draught. Ben pats the area that he hopes is Armie’s shoulder.  
“Come on, sit up.”  
Armie groans a reply that sounds like it might have been, ”Fuck you.”  
Ben puts his bags down and says, “I brought you some stuff. Come out from under there.”  
Armie’s head emerges and Ben laughs. His face is puce and his hair, normally perfectly styled, sticks up on one side and is plastered flat to his head on the other. There are dark smudges under his eyes and wrinkles indented into his skin from folds in the pillowcase.  
“You look like shit.”  
Armie manages to raise one middle finger in Ben’s direction.  
“I brought you some food,” says Ben. “Have you eaten today?”  
Armie pulls a face. Ben produces the polystyrene pot of chicken soup and Armie perks up at the smell. Ben grins and hands it over with a plastic spoon. Armie’s hands are a bit shaky and Ben resists the urge to offer to feed the soup to him. Armie eats half of it then gives up. Ben finishes the rest then offers Armie the fried rice.

Armie emerges properly from the bed and sits on the edge in his flannel pyjamas, the top buttoned wrong and exposing pink skin. The trouser legs are loose around slender ankles and Ben has to try not to stare. He fails. Armie shakes his head at the rice. Ben shrugs and eats a little of it. He puts the tray down and pulls the precious lecture notes from his bag.  
“I knew you’d worry about missing classes so I went to your lectures and took notes for you.” Ben hands over the pages he worked so hard on. “You know, so that you can catch up.”  
Armie frowns in confusion over the elaborate script on the bundle of pages in his hand. He tries to read but puts the sheaf of paper down beside him.  
“Sorry,” he says. “I can’t take it in right now. My brain isn’t working. The words aren’t making sense.”  
“That’s okay,” Ben says, hiding his disappointment behind a forkful of rice with a prawn precariously balanced on top. He moves the notes from Armie’s bed to his desk. “I guess you can study them later when you feel up to it.”

Ben picks up the foil tray of rice and takes another mouthful. Armie watches him eat, eyes following the fork from tray to lips and back again. Ben offers it to him again and this time Armie accepts. The first forkful ends up down his pyjama top and on the bedding. Ben laughs and takes the tray back.  
“Get up for a minute.”  
Armie stands, clinging to the wall for balance. Ben picks up the grains of rice that litter Armie’s bed then helps him shake out his pyjamas. Armie sits down again, leaning back against the wall, and Ben sits beside him. Ben scoops up a forkful of rice and holds it steady. They discover it’s easier if Armie holds the tray and Ben puts his arm around Armie’s shoulders.  
“You’ll get sick,” Armie warns. “You should stay back.”  
“To late,” Ben replies with a shrug. “Want some more?”  
Armie’s feeling a bit better from having eaten but he only manages two more mouthfuls before he has to refuse any more. He closes his heavy eyelids for a few seconds. When he wakes, he’s tucked up in bed and there’s a note half-under his pillow.

_You fell asleep so I put you in bed. The rest of the rice is in the communal fridge in a clean tub with your name on it. You should probably have a shower and change your sheets even if you still feel like shit._

Armie feels well enough to smile and then to be a little embarrassed. He knows he stinks and his room is foul. Ren left the window open, thank goodness, although the blinds are down and rattling slightly in the cool breeze. He gets up and finds his towel. The shower is the best thing in the entire universe. Armie takes his time, washing his hair thoroughly and soaping his whole body twice over just to make sure he’s clean again. He puts on fresh pyjamas and staggers to the communal kitchen at the end of the corridor, using the wall for balance. Sure enough, in the fridge there is a plastic tub with a label that says, _”If you eat this, Armie’s friend Ben will hurt you.”_ He puts it in the microwave—shuddering at the spattered on food that has accumulated over the two days he has not been able to sterilise it—and eats slowly, propped up against the worktop. He dumps the tub in the sink (it’s not his) and finds a drywipe pen to scribble a note on the microwave: _Clean this out by midnight or I will cut off the plug._ Then he goes back to his room.

It smells better. All the time he was out in the shower and in the kitchen, he left the door and window open. He strips the bed and smiles when two grains of rice fall to the rug when he shakes out the duvet. Once he’s put his spare bedding on, he lies down to rest. He’s exhausted, but knows he’s getting better. He grabs his phone and sends a text to Ben.  
**Thanks for the food. I had the rest of the rice for breakfast.**  
There’s a buzz form his phone after three minutes.  
**You mean lunch :P want me to bring more?**  
**You don’t have to do that. I can go to the dining hall tonight.**  
**You shouldn’t if you’re still sick. I’ll come over. Chinese again?**  
Armie almost cries. Why is this vague friend, this _hot_ vague friend, being so thoughtful? He’d expected Doph to show up with sandwiches, crisps and a bottle of coke and have to tell him, as politely as he could manage, ‘thanks but piss off now’. Instead he has Big Ben offering to be at his beck and call. He blinks until his eyes clear.  
**Thanks and yes**  
**okay text me what you want later or will get soup and rice again**  
**lecture notes any good?**  
Armie frowns then remembers. He twists his head until he can see the papers on his desk—oh so very far away from his bed—and decides that’s a tomorrow problem.  
**yes great thanks**

Armie wakes up an hour later when there’s a knock at his door. This time it’s Mitaka, holding out a paper carrier from the campus coffee shop.  
“This is from Ben,” says the nervous lad. “He said I had to deliver this then fuck off and leave you alone or he’d choke me.”  
Armie raises both eyebrows and takes the bag without speaking. Mitaka glares.  
“I don’t like him at all.”  
“Oh,” says Armie.  
Mitaka turns and marches away. Inside, there’s a cup of Armie’s favourite tea and a sugar ring doughnut. He eats the doughnut and snaps a selfie with his sugar-encrusted smile.

In his tutorial, Ben feels his pocket vibrate, and not being allowed to looks at his phone is sweet torture. Professor Snoke tells him off for being unfocused and presenting highschoolish arguments, but Ben barely cares. He’s counting the minutes until his tutorial ends at six and he can walk up to Armie’s dorm via the takeaway and present him with food and beautiful lecture notes. And receive suitable thanks and praise, of course. Eventually Snoke sighs, sets the next assignment and dismisses the group. Ben whips out his phone as soon as he is clear of the room and stares at the selfie. He wants to kiss the sugar off those sweet lips.

He buys soup and rice again, double portions, and hurries up to Armie’s dorm room. The door is open and this time the room smells fresh and Armie looks more like his usual self with slicked back hair and pale cheeks. Armie smiles and Ben smiles back. He sets the takeaway cartons out on Armie’s desk then hands him one of the tubs of soup. they eat without talking until Armie puts down his empty carton and says, “Thanks.”  
“You’re welcome,” is Ben’s automatic reply. Ben hands over a foil tray of fried rice and a fork. “I have notes from your classes today.”  
“Oh.”  
Ben thinks Armie looks bothered about something. He’s chewing his lip and looking away. Ben frowns.  
“Something wrong?”  
“Nothing!” Armie says too quickly, getting on with the business of shovelling rice into his face without missing. Ben eats more slowly, watching Armie avoid his gaze.  
“Tell me,” he says. “I should probably go.”  
“It’s really nothing,” Armie says, smiling. “It’s just... you went to so much trouble for me yesterday and again today. I wanted to know why you did all that.”  
Ben goes red and flusters a bit before he speaks. “I guess I thought you’d be worried about falling behind because you’re uptight that way and I wanted to help. And I stopped by at dinner time so I brought dinner and you hadn’t eaten so I shared it. Seemed polite.”  
“Oh,” Armie says. “You were being polite.”  
“I thought it was a nice thing to do for a friend,” Ben elaborates, foil tray abandoned, eyes looking everywhere except at Armie’s steady gaze.  
“For an uptight friend. I see.” Armie looks away and suddenly everything is awkward.  
Ben rummages in his backpack and adds another sheaf of paper to the notes on Armie’s desk.  
“Look, I should go,” he says.  
“No,” says Armie before Ben’s statement is out.  
_Say it,_ he thinks

Ben is silent and still.  
_Say it!_ Armie thinks harder. _Just say something I can hang on to._  
“Whatever,” Ben says with a sigh. He looks at Armie directly at last. “I like you, okay?”  
“Because you’re my friend,” replies Armie.  
“Because I _like_ you.” Ben presses his lips together into a tight line and Armie watches his cheek muscle twitch. “Should I forget it because you just want to be friends?”  
“No,” says Armie a bit louder. “I want you to stay.”  
Ben grins and his face lights up. He lurches forward and cups Armie’s face between his large, warm hands then leans in and kisses him.  
“You’ll get sick,” Armie warns with a laugh, then kisses Ben again.

Armie sends Ben home a couple of hours later when he’s barely able to keep his eyes open. When he wakes up there are two goodnight texts from Ben waiting and they make him feel warm and smiley. It’s early, but the sun is up so he gets out of bed and looks at the lecture notes Ben brought. His face wrinkles into a frown. The pages are filled with beautifully written gibberish with the occasional technical term thrown in. After leafing through all the papers, Armie holds them over the waste basket, but changes his mind. He reaches down the new presentation book he bought, carefully slots each perfect page into its own plastic pocket and puts the book on his shelf. He texts Ben.  
**thanks for the notes**  
**please don’t go to my lectures today**  
**I can catch up from what you already gave me plus my textbooks**  
He doesn’t expect a reply immediately. Lit students are, by repute, not early risers.  
He doesn’t hear from Ben all day, even when he sends a single word **goodnight.**

Next day is Saturday so there are no classes to attend. When Armie has still not heard from Ben by two in the afternoon, he starts to worry. Was Ben regretting what happened between them? Was Ben ghosting him? He sends another text, but not to Ben.  
**Is Ben angry with me?**  
Phasma’s replies come immediately.  
**No**  
**Why?**  
**did you tell him to fuck off?**  
**he likes you**  
**I mean he LIKES you**  
**In case he couldn’t find the stones to tell you himself**

Armitage is still absorbing that barrage of texts when another arrives. It’s from Ben.  
**You were right**  
**I usually am**  
**specifically what was I right about?**  
**I’m sick**  
Armie laughs aloud then types out his reply.  
**I’ll come over later and bring food and read your book to you if you like.**

It is years later that Ben finds out his notes were useless, and Armie finds out that the monotone drone of his voice sent Ben to sleep. It was small revenge but perfectly in keeping with tradition that Mitaka, Armie’s best man and Phasma, Ben’s matron of honour, got to use their speeches to embarrass the happy couple.


End file.
